I am living now, for a while anyhow, in Sri Lanka.

We did escape the worst of the Covid misery for most of last year but things are not so good here at the moment.

Travel is now severely curtailed — but, despite all that, things are still pretty good in many ways.

I try to keep up with IW news most days and am becoming rather worried about some of the things that I read or see.

This letter is to ask how things really are now?

I see that the Island is now promoted, quite rightly, as a splendid destination for a Staycation - (have to use these modern words now!) but, it seems that the ferries/Red Jet/hovercraft links are somewhat unreliable these days — perhaps that's putting it mildly.

And, that's really not much use is it?

In 1950 I arrived on the Island by paddle steamer — for the next 35 years or so I was constantly travelling backwards and forwards, to and from the mainland, and I am trying hard to remember 'Ferry Breakdowns'.

Nothing really annoying comes to mind. I remember being stuck because of fog, but that is of course quite acceptable. I don't remember the old Cowes chain ferry breaking down either.

Usually, when things are badly managed, we can vote with our feet and just not pay again for lousy service.

That is obviously not the case in the situation which I think that I see in this instance so, what is the answer please?

To my mind, silly 'apologies', so used by so many institutions and individuals which/who are supposed to be responsible for managing things, are simply of no use.

Perhaps we actually need proper responsibility to be taken by a lot of highly paid, apparently useless, people.